Woodworking courses

[Tasky]

And even more so with travel and accommodation. Would you reckon £7000 is worth it for a 12 week beginner course studying all aspects for beginners

Well, put it this way - That's more than four years' worth of total disposable income for me. That means no tax, insurance, MoT or fuel for the car, no chocolate bars or other snacks, no computer games, no tools or wood, no internet, no mobile phone, no presents for anyone's birthday, Valentines or Christmas, and no beer.

Does this seven grand include the accomodation, as well, or something?
Either way, you'd better have some guarantee of emerging as one AWESOME beginner woodworker after that kind of cash!!
Heck, doing a full-on course at the local Uni doesn't cost that much!!

Yes, that's partly true, but the real benefit is there are rigid barriers in place that protect you from your own vacillations, procrastinations, dithering, laziness, greed, fear, and all the other human failings that afflict us all!

Isn't that what The Wife is for? :lol:

Basically, I challange anyone to watch a David Charlesworth DVD and not be absolutly crystal clear about the procedures that will be replicated.

You send me one of his DVDs and I'll accept that challenge!!

Time. You forgot time. So many people are in a rush these days.

Already covered - Effective time-management is a skill... :wink: :lol:

 

[Ttrees]

Fair point Custard
At the same time though, How many of folks that went to this theoritical secret mitre dovetail course could do it when returned back to their shops
(David C does give these courses and the results are perfection) look it up here.

I'd say there would be lots of things to do, to get to a point where you would be able to do what you done on the course...
Having a decent bench for one.

Anyone learning online, would be learning to get their stock surfaced first, and to be making seceret mitre dovetails after practice
I would imagine....
If they learned surface prep, then I think they would be in a better position to execute the seceret mitre dovetail on their own...
with the video, compared to some random woodworker that went on a course and built one seceret mitre dovetail joint perfectly

Tom

 

[El Barto]

If I had the time and money to do a course like that then I would. There was a point when I wanted to enrol at Chichester so I could learn everything "properly", but I couldn't make it work financially and for various other reasons (even though it's ridiculously good value if you compare to private woodworking education). I've enjoyed every moment of teaching myself to work wood but as Custard points out, there's discipline missing when you're self-taught that is instilled in you as an apprentice or under proper tutelage. That's something I personally feel I'd have really benefited from. It can be learnt but as again, as Custard said, it takes discipline and commitment. And motivation! I'm getting there I think but yeah, if you have the means to do one of these courses then why the hell not. Or maybe try a weekend or five day course and see if the environment is for you. You might do five days of building a dovetailed box, come away with something you're proud of and be motivated enough to learn as you go without the need for another course.

 

[MikeG.]

........Heck, doing a full-on course at the local Uni doesn't cost that much!!..........

Erm.......you sure about that?

 

[MikeG.]

You must go like the clappers, if I were quoting for that I'd assume 250 hours for one using all the machinery known to man, and that would be in the white with the skiver extra!

To add in a reference to another thread we've both taken part in, those three desks were made at the same time in a 10' x 15' workshop.

 

[custard]

And even more so with travel and accommodation. Would you reckon £7000 is worth it for a 12 week beginner course studying all aspects for beginners

Well, put it this way - That's more than four years' worth of total disposable income for me. That means no tax, insurance, MoT or fuel for the car, no chocolate bars or other snacks, no computer games, no tools or wood, no internet, no mobile phone, no presents for anyone's birthday, Valentines or Christmas, and no beer.

I hear that.

Woodworking isn't a cheap hobby, it's really not. But a lot of people make it even more expensive than it needs be. One of the (many) ways they do that is by being very unfocussed on what it is that they want to make. When asked they'll say something vague like "a bit of everything", or "I'd like to be in a position to turn my hand to most things".

You can get into woodworking for less money, but you have to focus. It might be carving or turning, or if it's furniture then you'd have to narrow that down further.

For example you could take a one week windsor chair course with James Mursell for £650, kit yourself out for windsor chair making for less than a grand including a lathe, and even in a small garden shed you'd be good to go, making real pieces of furniture within a few months of beginning, furniture that would be treasured by your family and fully up to saleable standards. Do that for a couple of years and you'd find moving onto case furniture would become a lot easier as you'd have a real grounding in exactly how wood behaves as a working material. But everything has a catch, and with windsor chairs it's sourcing the correct timber. You can't get decent hardwood from your local B&Q, but freshly felled or air dried billets of Yew for steam bending aren't even available from 95% of timber yards, so that's where a good part of your efforts would have to go.

Hey, it's all about cutting your cloth, in that respect woodworking's no different to anything else.

 

[El Barto]

For example you could take a one week windsor chair course with James Mursell for £650, kit yourself out for windsor chair making for less than a grand including a lathe, and even in a small garden shed you'd be good to go, making real pieces of furniture within a few months of beginning, furniture that would be treasured by your family and fully up to saleable standards. Do that for a couple of years and you'd find moving onto case furniture would become a lot easier as you'd have a real grounding in exactly how wood behaves as a working material. But everything has a catch, and with windsor chairs it's sourcing the correct timber. You can't get decent hardwood from your local B&Q, but freshly felled or air dried billets of Yew for steam bending aren't even available from 95% of timber yards, so that's where a good part of your efforts would have to go.

This is what I'm doing (or trying to do) O

 

[custard]

For example you could take a one week windsor chair course with James Mursell for £650, kit yourself out for windsor chair making for less than a grand including a lathe, and even in a small garden shed you'd be good to go, making real pieces of furniture within a few months of beginning, furniture that would be treasured by your family and fully up to saleable standards. Do that for a couple of years and you'd find moving onto case furniture would become a lot easier as you'd have a real grounding in exactly how wood behaves as a working material. But everything has a catch, and with windsor chairs it's sourcing the correct timber. You can't get decent hardwood from your local B&Q, but freshly felled or air dried billets of Yew for steam bending aren't even available from 95% of timber yards, so that's where a good part of your efforts would have to go.

This is what I'm doing (or trying to do) O

PM me Barto, I've still got some some 2 1/2" thick slabs of English Elm from the pre Dutch Elm disease era, it's pretty much been unobtainable for the past twenty or thirty years. I'm unlikely to use them all so you're welcome to a piece that'll yield a classic single board windsor seat for when you decide you're ready to make your windsor magnum opus!

 

[El Barto]

For example you could take a one week windsor chair course with James Mursell for £650, kit yourself out for windsor chair making for less than a grand including a lathe, and even in a small garden shed you'd be good to go, making real pieces of furniture within a few months of beginning, furniture that would be treasured by your family and fully up to saleable standards. Do that for a couple of years and you'd find moving onto case furniture would become a lot easier as you'd have a real grounding in exactly how wood behaves as a working material. But everything has a catch, and with windsor chairs it's sourcing the correct timber. You can't get decent hardwood from your local B&Q, but freshly felled or air dried billets of Yew for steam bending aren't even available from 95% of timber yards, so that's where a good part of your efforts would have to go.

This is what I'm doing (or trying to do) O

PM me Barto, I've still got some some 2 1/2" thick slabs of English Elm from the pre Dutch Elm disease era, it's pretty much been unobtainable for the past twenty or thirty years. I'm unlikely to use them all so you're welcome to a piece that'll yield a classic single board windsor seat for when you decide you're ready to make your windsor magnum opus!

Wow!!! That is insanely generous and I think I will take you up on it... thank you

 

[Steve Maskery]

This is a really interesting conversation and I can see things from both sides of the fence.

I used to be a teacher (physics and chemistry, not actually woodwork) and I used to be a fairly competent woodworker and a fairly prolific woodworking informer. I made a couple of houses worth of furniture and I was published every month in magazines for several years. I've also done quite a bit of 1:1 tuition in the workshop and, of course, I still try to sell my world-class woodworking DVDS (And I'm about to feature prominently on an Italian woodworking magazine website, but far be it from me to blow my own trumpet...)

But most of it was all quite a few years ago.

I now find myself trying to get back to where I was 10 years ago! I've spent the last week or two, sporadically, trying to get back my dovetailing skills so that I can make a Christmas present for a friend. Today's effort has been good, but there is difference between being able to do a task right and being unable to do it wrong. I do not want to waste custard's great generosity. I have a few days left, don't I?

I've enjoyed the teaching that I have done. And I wouldn't mind doing some more. Any old woodworker has skills they can pass on, and any old woodworker still has many, many things yet to learn. Well I do, anyway.

I would love to do a course or two on things that are new to me, but it would always be a Jolly, a Holiday With A Purpose, rather than a means to an end. At the end of the day, woodworking is a skill that can be learned but not necessarily taught! Graft, graft, graft. Guidance is a great help, but make sure you buy guidance in the areas that matter to you. 12 weeks making a wotsit might be right up your street, or not. A weekend making a thingummy may, or may not, be more suitable.

I've just read all this before posting and I'm not at all sure I've contributed anything useful at all...

Heigh ho.

 

[Tasky]

Erm.......you sure about that?

Actually not at our local any more, as they seem to have removed it from their schedule, along with the Engineering ones I was looking at. But most places seem to offer beginners courses for about £2-3k. Full on bench joinery diplomas L2 and L3 are about £5k a piece. A 2 year course that results in CITB L2 Bench Joinery, C&G Fine Woodworking and C&G L2 diploma in Machine Woodworking is only £18k in total... and that's prices of things you can build a career on.

Woodworking isn't a cheap hobby, it's really not. But a lot of people make it even more expensive than it needs be. One of the (many) ways they do that is by being very unfocussed on what it is that they want to make. When asked they'll say something vague like "a bit of everything", or "I'd like to be in a position to turn my hand to most things".
You can get into woodworking for less money, but you have to focus. It might be carving or turning, or if it's furniture then you'd have to narrow that down further.

Woodworking is like any other hobby (in my case, things like drumming, martial arts and shooting) and what I'm finding is that, while there may be many different approaches, a dovetail joint is just a dovetail joint, a cut is just a cut and a shaving is just a shaving. What you do with them and how far you take them is up to you, but the basic underlying principles remain the same and that is what beginners should be learning.

The basic beginners stuff is just that - Basic stuff for beginners. £7k is well into the realms of what I'd consider professional industry qualifications. This is not hobby money, it's complete career money!

If you're doing a "beginner's" woodworking course that costs the same as a brand new Audi, a riding horse or a private pilot licence, either it is a complete course on everything with one of the world's absolute top woodworkers and a guarantee of awesomeness at the end, or your requirements of getting started in woodworking are well beyond hobby level and more in the realms of professional.

If, however, you were talking £7k for one of the above-named professionals with many decades of proven skill and experience to personally teach you something considered advanced, with which you could be as good as a professional even if you keep it for your own hobby... then yeah, fair enough and completely up to you.
But for a beginners course, to get you started? No way.

 

[Bodgers]

And even more so with travel and accommodation. Would you reckon £7000 is worth it for a 12 week beginner course studying all aspects for beginners

Well, put it this way - That's more than four years' worth of total disposable income for me. That means no tax, insurance, MoT or fuel for the car, no chocolate bars or other snacks, no computer games, no tools or wood, no internet, no mobile phone, no presents for anyone's birthday, Valentines or Christmas, and no beer.

Does this seven grand include the accomodation, as well, or something?
Either way, you'd better have some guarantee of emerging as one AWESOME beginner woodworker after that kind of cash!!
Heck, doing a full-on course at the local Uni doesn't cost that much!!

Yes, that's partly true, but the real benefit is there are rigid barriers in place that protect you from your own vacillations, procrastinations, dithering, laziness, greed, fear, and all the other human failings that afflict us all!

Isn't that what The Wife is for? :lol:

Basically, I challange anyone to watch a David Charlesworth DVD and not be absolutly crystal clear about the procedures that will be replicated.

You send me one of his DVDs and I'll accept that challenge!!

Time. You forgot time. So many people are in a rush these days.

Already covered - Effective time-management is a skill... :wink: :lol:

I think you might need a rethink on your definition of disposable income!

Tax and MOT on your car, your phone etc are your normal expenses...not to mention beer - that's not optional - no way

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[ColeyS1]

It's almost as if that for some people woodworking is really all about building a gallery in which to display their tool collection.

That's so true! I'm seeing it happening more and more lately. I browse a few other forums and you can always tell the people who were hoping to buy skills. Mega expensive tools being sold 'good as new', barely even seeing a piece of wood.



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's almost as if that for some people woodworking is really all about building a gallery in which to display their tool collection.

That's so true! I'm seeing it happening more and more lately. I browse a few other forums and you can always tell the people who were hoping to buy skills. Mega expensive tools being sold 'good as new', barely even seeing a piece of wood.



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Yeah .... right ....

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Tasky]

Tax and MOT on your car, your phone etc are your normal expenses...not to mention beer - that's not optional - no way

All things I'd be told to give up by the benefits-type agency, or indeed the wife, if I were going cap-in-hand to either of them.
Rent, bills, food. That's it for essential life spend.

 

[iNewbie]

Custard, You always mention training when a topic like this comes up
I could be described as unwilling to spend my money on timber and skills, and one could say I've nothing to show for it either
But I'd like to think, I have the skills to do what I have in store for me for the next good while ...
And in some folks opinion, I have a good quanity of nice timber ( all salvaged )

I must say I do spend a lot of time on this forum and others, but even if I did not, and just read the thread I linked,
and watched those videos....
I think I would have a good grasp on the basics....ie, getting a board S6S sufraced six sides.

I'm not saying I know how to make a chair like those you've shown before, but I think some folk will be making videos on the subject...
hopefully soon !
I understand lots of folks make videos on the basics, and cater to the novices only, but I think this will change.
If it doesn't, I guess there are folks who will be making videos on all specialist topics, before long
( Just remembeered I have paid for skills before on luthier DVD's ) (homer)

Basically, I challange anyone to watch a David Charlesworth DVD and not be absolutly crystal clear about the procedures
that will be replicated.
His woodworking videos explain proceedures in such a precice absolute way, that's far better than any demonstration I've ever seen or heard....
and his methods are 110 percent reliable to boot.
He really goes to the trouble scripting the DVD's, and uses the english language to its best, describing things to such detail...no one I've seen comes close.

And I can watch them again, and again..
Beats the pants of going crosseyed from fatigue, learning from someone who I just didn't strike a chord with

I'd save the classes for later, because of all the great information freely available on Youtube and here.
That's my 2 cents

Interested to see the counter agrument from someone who has watched a DC DVD

Tom

The DC videos are good, but what you don't get is real time learning. Its the same for any hobby/profession when it comes to learning and not everyone learns in the same manner - look up Learning Styles.

I'd bet a shaving on anyone who's attended any Charlesworth course felt they learnt something else from it than from just watching his video. There are subtleties and nuances a teacher can impart in real-time a video never can. Because its your experience at that moment.

 

[Ttrees]

Fair point iNewbie
A good point about learning styles,
I remember seeing a video of David's after watching some of Rob Cosman's ...
I thought it was quite a different style, Rob IMO catering to a wider audience of folks who have a slightly
shorter attention span, and a shop with power tools, but wanting to get into hand work dudes....

And David's more like ...Welcome
Today were going to be quite regimental and very systematic in the production of this joint.
We are going to be using these tools in order to execute it, using these methods of surety.
Nothing is left to chance, everything is checked, and the methods are absolutely foolproof.
Lots of close ups and nothing is just touched on, no its explained.

Some folks might find it too slow, but I suspect these folks aren't making, nor want to make stuff in that style.

As Tasky said paying top dollar for a beginners course no way !

 

[Tasky]

Some folks might find it too slow, but I suspect these folks aren't making, nor want to make stuff in that style.

I'm always amazed that people (myself included) will sit and watch a real-time video of some 67 year old bloke from Stockport just planing a piece of wood for 40 minutes... but we do and that's where 3am comes from!

 

[Peter Sefton]

A twelve week woodworking course is quite a financial and personal commitment but works out at around £12 per hour. For my students this includes all the materials and teaching by 5 others craftsmen specialist in their own areas. £12 is not cheap but still half the price per hour as a driving lesson. I only wish I had the overheads of a driving instructor

I would hope my videos are informative and educational but this is quite different from the interaction of working with students in the workshop, which is still the best way to learn, time and cash permitting.

As it has been pointed out everyone has different learning styles, but more importantly they have different skill levels and need individual mentoring to gain the most and improve. Also the best learning happens when things go wrong as we have to know how to overcome the issues and carry on. A good syllabus is designed to stretch the students and get them trying a whole range of techniques and timbers all of which have their own learning opportunities.

The internet and DVD's can be a great source of knowledge but it can also be full of fake news and the blind leading the blind. It is a useful resource but a bit like learning in a bubble or only being lectured too.

As we see on this forum woodworking is a vast craft and has so many different approaches and ways of doing things, I feel it's good to learn in the company of others to pick on a range of skills and techniques and this happens when students ask challenging questions and learn from each other.

I sometimes wonder if this "I can teach myself" stems from the current lack of appreciation or understanding in the crafts and the modern day thinking of if it can be done or simulated on a computer it can be made.

Cheers Peter

 

[Ttrees]

Funny I got more of an impression I had to teach myself on a turning & milling course I was in...
partly due to fatigue and partly that the style of the tutor did not suit my style, nor understand me.
The biggest upset for me as the (seemingly) lack of love for the craft which the tutor had.

I will say however this course wasn't paid for by me, nor was the machinery the tutors ...
so you can understand why I have the gripe.

Most, if not all the tutors I have seen on HERE obviously have a love/obsession with the craft.
That does sound very reasonable Peter, and your workshop seems like a very good environment.

I don't see watching videos and reading as teaching yourself though
Tom :ho2